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Tour de squat

2014

A3 exhibition poster

What: Exhibition identity and typeface design based on Platform for Chaos typeface developed in 2007. I also made a zine called Tour de Squat that was a part of the exhibition about the story behind this typeface.
Where: Frames of thinking exhibition at the Poortgebouw during the Art Rotterdam 2014.

Text from the zine:
In 2007, I created an illustrative typeface Platform 4 Chaos using squatted buildings in Rotterdam as the components of each letter. I remember cycling around the city and taking photos of buildings such as de Fabriek (where I was living at the time), Locus 010, de Boogjes and the Poortgebouw itself. Another layer was added by using an Illustrator Plugin called Scriptographer to generate unpredictable lines emphasising the concept of chaos.

This typeface was however developed for a bigger research on Rotterdam’s squatter movement/housing situation as a response to the commercial exploitation of public spaces. Platform 4 Chaos proposed for more unity between squatter groups that were already re-using these spaces for cultural, social causes and non-profit activities.

It’s 2014 and seven years have passed. These unique spaces which once provided Rotterdam with a richer and culturally dynamic landscape are now gone, partly due to the prohibition law enacted in 2010. When invited to participate in this show, I came to remember the Platform 4 Chaos project and the ideas, time and context it was connected to. Somehow, it seemed appropriate to re-use and re-contextualise this forgotten project as a way to reflect upon what was lost but also as a way to facilitate a new generation of independent spaces, one example that comes to my mind is the Leeszaal, Rijnhoutplein 3.

The Poortgebouw is however, an anomaly. Although legally different, the space still exists, standing the test of time and changing politics. But it is more than just the physical building – it is about the spirits, histories, ideologies, struggles and communities the space has seen and harboured. In this way, I feel like this typeface is coming ‘home’ for the first time. Therefore I would like to present this work as a sort of homage to the Poortgebouw itself, to the time in which spaces like these flourished, but also the other spaces that appear in this work that were once active in the city of Rotterdam. Lastly, I also offered the use of this typeface for promotional material for this event as an act of support for the cause of self-organisation today.